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Tennis Masters Cup summary
Nalbandian slowed
Eighth-ranked David Nalbandian of Argentina has spent much of the past few weeks trying to heal his left wrist, which has slowed him since the U.S. Open.

He returned to action for the first time Oct. 22 in Basel, Switzerland, where he entered as the defending champion. He didn't lose a set en route to the final after capturing back-to-back wins over Tim Henman in the quarterfinals and Andy Roddick in the semifinals. But tendinitis in his wrist forced him to withdraw from the title match against Guillermo Coria.

Nalbandian is hoping two weeks of rest will help him get through the Tennis Masters Cup. He is slated to play in today's opening singles match against No. 2 Juan Carlos Ferrero at 1 p.m.

"It's getting better," Nalbandian said. "The doctor told me it was much better than two weeks before. I'm not sure if I'll be 100 percent because I haven't tried to use it 100 percent. I had to be careful, but I'll see tomorrow."

If Nalbandian or any of the other players is forced to withdraw from the event early, alternate Mark Philippoussis will fill the vacancy. But he will be eligible for the semifinals only if a player withdraws prior to playing his first match.

Unused tickets
Despite sellouts of Saturday and Sunday's doubles sessions, almost half the seats went unused. Tournament promoter Linda McIngvale has requested that people who bought full-session tickets return any that they cannot use. The proceeds for any resold tickets will go toward the inner-city tennis program McIngvale developed this fall.

Westside officials have had few tickets returned.

"It was sold out, but you get these people that buy series tickets and then can't come every day," McIngvale said. "I wish they would have given the tickets back to us, because we had so many requests for tickets that I could have sold every single one of those. I mean, if you weren't coming, we could have sold those seats, because we've had phone calls off the wall of people wanting to see both doubles sessions."